When it comes to wine bars I’m a bit of a pain in the ass. There are many out there which are actually just restaurants that slap “& Wine Bar” on their sign but fail in this regard and actually need to be bitched about properly in another article. There there are the wine bars that are snooty or the ones that have by-the-glass prices which are the same as a whole bottle. Then there are just a whole pile of them that kinda suck and have wines that are less interesting than warm Budweiser.
Then of course, we come to Vinum in the village of Porrera in Priorat. This spot started life as a wine shop that just a couple of years back was geared more at milking weekenders who popped in to the village than anything else. It changed hands a little over two years ago and the new family owners decided to start offering wines by-the-glass from the cellars in the village. Despite the fact that there are about a dozen excellent cellars in Porrera, there wasn’t anywhere that nice to enjoy the wines short of the restaurant, La Cooperativa. Thus, Vinum got very popular, very quickly.
They tossed a couple of tables out on the square during summer that would pretty much always be full of locals having an evening drink before heading home for dinner. The only problem with this was that they were still really just a shop and had no bathrooms or other bar-like amenities to support this. So earlier this year they began an expansion in to the building next to theirs and after what was supposed to be a couple of months that ran in to many months, they have now officially opened this space as of January.
It’s an excellent addition and while it doesn’t mean that there are any additional tables to be had out on the square during good weather, there are a helluva lot more of them inside now as well as [drumroll] restrooms. Another part of this that I wasn’t aware of until checking out the new extension was the “deposit” which was an old winemaking tank in the building next door that they’ve put a door in and people can reserve it for a little private affair.
Then of course they have more space for more wines from Priorat as well as much needed storage and a larger bar for serving. Overall, no end of improvements to the space and while I look forward to making use of them very much in the coming months, I may find myself crowded out due to how popular this wine bar/shop is going to get.
